In a report released this Wednesday, Fidelity Digital Assets, in collaboration with Lightning Payment Provider Voltage, released a report on the state of the Lightning Network.
This report details many ways the Lightning network has grown since its launch in 2018.
It also shows that in 2024 more companies are beginning to adopt lightning than they did last year, with larger channels being formed on the network, with more Lightning nodes coming online.
Some important statistics for the work include:
Total lightning capacity derived in the US dollar has increased by 2,767% as Bitcoin removal capacity in 2020 is currently increasing by 384% over the same period, compared to lightning bolts below 1,000,000 SAT processed in under 1.1 seconds Almost all payments are also increasing.
These statistics made me optimistic, but that was the other information in the report, which really resonated with me and rethinked how I viewed Bitcoin and lightning.
Below were the top three takeaways in the report.
Nostring’s payments are driven by Nostring (the world’s largest Bitcoin circular economy) as NOSTR users have sent over 3.6 million Zaps on projects over the past six months, like ARK, another Bitcoin Layer 2 protocol. has been acquired. – Peer-to-peer channels (ARK allows users to share virtual UTXOS (vutxos) with larger groups rather than one-to-one) can be built on top. A way that many people initially didn’t expect that the “HODL” mentality was one of the things that delayed the adoption of lightning. In other words, if Bitcoin enthusiasts don’t use Bitcoin, the growth of lightning could stagnate and could hurt Bitcoin’s value proposition
So, we’re here at the beginning of 2025, so it’s a year that many people think will become bigger to lightning, so I’ll see what traction has gained in the next 10 months. I’m not optimistic.
Bitcoin is used as a medium of exchange, more often than not Satoshi intended it.